What's been happening around here: December 26th until the present.

On the morning after Christmas, we were sitting around the breakfast table with Cathy and Eric trying to plan our day.  We thought that a trip to the Biltmore House would be a nice way to spend the day but due to my lack of poor planning, they were already sold out for tickets through the rest of the week.  It was a bummer because the Biltmore House is especially beautiful during Christmas but I wasn't too bummed because basic tickets at Christmas are $124 PER PERSON.  YIKES!

So we decided to head to Greensboro to tour  The International Civil Rights Museum. Our tour guide was excellent (and extremely passionate about civil rights) and it was so neat to see the actual lunch counter in it's spot where the sit-in took place in 1960 in the actual Woolworth's store.  They did not allow pictures inside the exhibits but here's a few I pulled online.

After the tour, we went to lunch at Mac's Speedshop and then we went to LeBauer Park where they had an outdoor skating rink set up. The rink was pretty tiny and it was packed.  I opted to watch since I really don't need any broken extremities and Peter (who like me, doesn't really care for ice skating) took a drive through Greensboro while the other's "skated". And I use that term loosely since it seemed for the most part, they were just trying not to fall!  But Cathy and Eric were good sports about it and I *think* they enjoyed themselves.

Later that night, we all settled around the television and watched Shutter Island.  We all really enjoyed it.

The next morning, Sarah had a dentist appointment. When she got back from that we headed to The Porch for a late lunch and then we went bowling.  It's been a while since I bowled and even though I was horrible at it, it was still a lot of fun.

On our way home, we swung by the Shell Service Station.  There were 8 of these built in the Winston-Salem, NC area in 1930 and this is the only one surviving.  It was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1976.  It is considered "novel architecture" and was built when the new owner of the local Shell distributor decided he needed to bring brand awareness to the area. It actually used to be a working service station. It's so cute!

 

After dinner we watched Point Break.  Everyone really enjoyed it (it was such a blast from the past). Even Peter enjoyed it.  He said it started off slow but then picked up and was very enjoyable.

On Wednesday morning, Eric and Cathy headed back to Washington and we attempted to get things in order.  I was behind on laundry, there were lots of gifts that needed to be put in their proper place, the floors needed to be swept, we needed some groceries, the whole nine yards. Later that night we had a fire in the fire pit and then watched Knives Out.  It was an excellent movie!On the night of the 23rd, we watched Snatch which was also enjoyable.  

 

I'm so out of the loop but apparently there's an app called Letterboxd, It's a social app where you can record all the movies you've seen and share your opinion on them.  Peter uses it and came up with these movies because they were recommended by his friends.  (With the exception of Point Break.  Eric had read that it was about to leave Netflix so we wanted to see it before it was too late.)

Peter had plans on New Year's Eve, so he headed back to Raleigh and we enjoyed our traditional New Year's Eve meal with Jennifer and her family at Tokyo Japanese Steak House. 

Our dinner reservation was at 8:15.  We were home by 9:45 and I was in bed by 11:00.  I know some will think that's lame but I'm an old lady who needs her sleep.  

Peter came home the next day and we watched the Panthers blow their last chance to make it to the playoffs. On Monday, we took down all the Christmas decorations and ran some errands and not much else.  Then on Tuesday, Dan was back to work and Sarah spent the day with Joe and Peter hung out here around the house.  Then yesterday, he headed back to school but I snapped this cute picture of him with mom right before he left:

And Sarah headed to Oak Ridge to hang out with the Basement and she's currently still there which is affording me time to catch up on blogging, paying bills, laundry, etc. 

And that my friends is what we've been up to since Christmas day! Happy New Year!

 

Christmas 2022

Merry Christmas!   We had a wonderful holiday season around here and I hope you all did as well.

Dan made it home from his trip to Ireland late on December 22nd.  And then he and Sarah were up early to drop her car off at the dealership for some diagnostics to determine the cause of a problem she is having.  (This situation is still not resolved and will be an entirely too-long and probably too-boring post at some point in the future so stay tuned for that.) 

They spent the morning shopping for my stockingitems (because everyone knows that the oldest daughter in the family is responsible for Mom's happiness on Christmas morning.)  But to be fair, at least Dan knows he has a better chance of getting items that will make me happy if Sarah helps him out. Later that afternoon they made cookies as is their tradition:

Then before we knew it Christmas Eve had arrived!  We went to the Christmas Eve Candlelight and Lovefeast Service at the Moravian Church I grew up attending with my mom and brother and Jennifer's family and then came back to our house for snacks.  I made a delicious mixed drink and it was a hit!

 And sadly, this is the only photo I got but we had a great time!

On Sunday morning, Dan and I got up around 8:00 and put all the presents out and then had to force the kids out of bed to unwrap gifts.  If we weren't trying to make the 11:00 Christmas Mass, they probably would have slept until Noon!

Every year, I choose a wrapping paper for Peter and a different one for Sarah. Since their school colors are Christmas appropriate I opted for that this year.  Sarah's pile was UNCC green and white and gold and Peter's pile was NC State red, white and black.

Family selfie in our Christmas PJs!

 

After the gift unwrapping, we got dressed and headed to Mass. When we got back from Mass, Cathy and Eric had arrived from D.C. and we all headed next door to eat lunch with mom and Brad. After a delicious lunch of steak and twice baked potatoes and salad and chocolate cake, we unwrapped more gifts and took our annual family photo.

And then Peter played guitar and sang for us.  He's been adding more songs to his repertoire and in my opinion is sounding better and better! And then we went back to our house and exchanged a few more presents.

 And just like that - Christmas day was over!

He's on his way! (And I don't mean Santa.)

For the last two weeks, Dan has been in Ireland for work.  So even though my babies came home, he has been gone.  BUT!  He is currently on a plane home and hopefully will be home late tonight if all goes well!

I have purchased and wrapped all presents...although there are two more still to be delivered.  One will most likely not make it so a wrapped picture of the gift will have to suffice.  

I always love memes like this one because they are so accurate:

Well, at least they are accurate in this household!  :)

The kids are missing Dan but they have been keeping busy.  Peter and his friends went bowling one night and then to see the Festival of Lights at Tanglewood another night and he's been doing some work to earn a little extra money.  He's also been watching football and basketball games online as well as playing video games with friends.  He also had a dentist appointment, an allergist appointment and today will get his truck inspected.  

Sarah spent the weekend with her boyfriend's family at their lake house so they could get to know her and last night the two of them went to dinner, saw the lights at Tanglewood and exchanged presents.  And mostly she's just enjoying having no schoolwork to do!

Speaking of school work:  I'm proud to report that Sarah made the Chancellor's list (straight A's baby!) and Peter made the Dean's List!  So very proud of these two kiddos.  💓  I know I've mentioned it before but I still constantly ask for the intercessory prayers of St. Joseph of Cupertino.  Praying for my kids as they are studying and working hard at school is the one thing (the main thing!) I can do to help them.

I joined my mom and my aunt and uncle and we toured Korner's Folly.  It was decorated for Christmas and was so beautiful.  Then we enjoyed a delicious lunch at J. Pepper's.  It was so nice to get to spend time with them!

 

It's such a cold and dreary day here.  I'm finishing my third cup of coffee and I think it's finally time to get those last couple of gifts wrapped, those last couple of errands run, and get started on some food items I'm serving on Christmas Eve.

I hope you all have a very merry Christmas!

Considering it took me a week and a half to write, there's not much here....

***Editor's Note: I started writing this blog post last week trying to be a good blogger and yet here we are on Wednesday and I'm just finishing it up!  Oh well!***

It has been so rainy and dreary here all week.  Looks like the weekend will be the same but there's hope for some sun on Monday! And the kids will both be home for Christmas at some point next week (hopefully by Wednesday) so things are looking up!

I'm still Christmas shopping but I hope to have that all wrapped up ("wrapped up" meaning purchased, absolutely nothing will be wrapped) by next week.  

On Tuesday, my Care Group celebrated Christmas.  We ordered food in and talked and unwrapped presents.  It was like Christmas morning!

I'm the one unintentionally hiding in the back!  :)

It was brought to my attention by my blogging friend Suz, that I had a  typo in my last post.  I meant to say that I have to wear the Invisalign 20-22 hours per DAY not per WEEK.  Thank you, Suz! It takes a village to keep me on my blogging toes!

Speaking of Invisalign... I had my first follow-up appointment this week and I got the rest of my trays.  I also got some adorable little knobs glued to each of my teeth so that the trays able to apply more pressure to my teeth to get them to move.  While this may be beneficial for getting my teeth to move, now it really feels like I have braces because I can always feel these little knobs and when the tray is in my mouth it definitely looks like something is on my teeth.  You know how kids are always moving their lips over their teeth when they first get their braces?  Well, that's me now.  Hopefully the constant lip movement will cease once I get used to them.  I will hopefully be done with this by September.  But don't worry - I will not be talking about my teeth in every single blog post.  

*****Here's where last week's post ended and now we are current.****

I feel like we are back in current time, I should update that I did almost complete my shopping but you know how when you are wrapping you realize you forgot something or meant to get something else?  Yeah - that's where we are now.  But there's still 10 days until Christmas Eve so I'm feeling pretty good about everything.

 Our garden is still producing!  On a whim earlier in the fall, Dan planted beets and carrots! There's still quite a few of them out there and I just head outside and grab some when I'm making dinner and need a side.  

In other food news, I had a bag of Brussels sprouts in the fridge wasting away.  I like them but no one else does (and in our empty nest phase, the "no one else" is Dan). So I decided to throw them in the food processor and then I put them in the skillet with some olive oil, balsamic, dried cranberries, and bacon bits and used them as a base for my salmon.  It was really good and I will definitely make this again for lunch!

What's everyone watching on Netflix or HBO Max?  I need some suggestions.  Has anyone watched White Lotus?  What are your thoughts? 

Outtakes, Invisalign, and Salmon

I'm trying to get back into regular blogging.  I guess with the kids not being around it feels like nothing exciting is going on here - which is probably a good thing because I do like things calm and quiet. But calm and quiet doesn't necessarily make for entertaining blog reading.

Last weekend, before the kids headed back to school, we headed to Old Salem to attempt to get a decent picture for the Christmas card.  We took my brother along and he used my DSLR to take some pictures.  It was windy and very sunny which meant there were a lot of pictures that looked like this:

And these are just a few of the outtakes!  The shadows, the blowing hair, the weird facial expressions! I am laughing so hard at these right now.  But, believe it or not, we got a couple of decent ones for the card.  

Look at my cute mug!  I absolutely love Peppermint Mocha and found some Starbucks K-Cups that are peppermint mocha flavored.  They are very good and actually taste very similar to a Peppermint Mocha from Starbucks - but much less expensive and contain way less calories and fat.  That's a win-win in my book!

I got Invisalign  last week.  As you can see in the photo above, my top teeth no longer touch on my bottom teeth and it is making biting into things extremely difficult.  I struggle to eat sandwiches, burgers, or anything with more than one soft layer of something to bite into. It has gotten exceedingly worse in the last few years so I decided to bit the bullet (ha!) and do something about it.  

The first week of wearing them hasn't been the worst but it is going to be a learning curve for sure.  I have a bad habit of forgetting to put them back in after I eat. I'm supposed to wear them 20-22 hours per day and that's doable...unless I forget to put them back in.  And then there's the hassle of having to brush my teeth before I put them back in.  And the added bonus that I'm paranoid about getting cavities  so now I'm brushing after every meal/snack/drink and  flossing after every meal and snack so that's fun (and time consuming).  I'm hoping it's all worth it in the end.

This is a picture of my new favorite lunch meal:  

I coat a frozen salmon filet with Tajin on both sides and toss it in the air fryer on 400 for 10 minutes (or until the salmon reaches 145 degrees in the thickest part) and then throw that salmon on top of some rice (or if I'm being really healthy cauliflower rice) and some steamed veggies.  And than I drizzle it with sriracha sauce and Kewpie mayo and it's delicious!

So, tell please share with me your healthy but delicious lunch ideas. I'm always on the lookout for something flavorful and filling so do share.